Responding to MEPs’ concerns, the Dutch Commissioner said computer credit card fraud was likely to be a “little percentage” of the EU’s estimated annual card fraud of 600 million euro – itself only 0.07% of total card payments.

However, Bolkestein warned there was a lack of accurate data showing the extent of the problem. “Many companies are not willing to report cases of computer abuse to avoid bad publicity and exposure to future attacks,” he said.

“For this reason, the number of intrusions that are detected and reported almost certainly under-represents the full extent of the problem,” he added.

Meanwhile, he said company IT managers and users’ “limited awareness and experience” also led to undetected cases of fraud.

He said the Commission was funding a study into the security of ‘remote’ payments such as those over the internet or mobile phone, with results expected by the end of the year.

Bolkestein said these would be aired at a conference on the issue early in 2003.